VANCOUVER -- When a teenager was arrested in connection with a slaying here, the judge handling the case confronted an unusual obstacle.

All of Clark County's qualified defense lawyers -- including everyone with experience in murder cases -- were on strike.

Superior Court Judge Robert Harris finally appointed an attorney, but only after hinting that he could be held in contempt for refusing the job.

That was more than a year ago.

The 18-year-old defendant was convicted, but of a lesser charge, and has since been released. More significant, changes benefiting many other indigent criminal defendants are now in place. The lawyers' strike resulted in better pay and working conditions and higher professional standards.

The unusual protest came after the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported in August 2001 that defense lawyers handling three out of five of Clark County's death-penalty cases had been either disbarred or arrested. Experts blamed poor screening and sweatshop practices for undermining defense in many other criminal cases.

Vancouver attorney James "Jeff" Sowder decided to fight back, persuading 40 of his colleagues to take no more homicide cases until the county overhauled its public defense contracts.

"We weren't being treated well, and there was really no reason for it," he said.

Sowder and others argued the county's policies hurt the poor. Pay was so low some lawyers said they couldn't afford to spend the time needed to scour police reports or visit defendants in jail. In other cases, court-appointed lawyers have failed to show up in court at all.

Clark County's problems are not unique -- but it is the state's largest county without a public defender system, which experts say offers a more consistent quality of defense. About a third of the state's counties use public defenders or non-profit public defender associations.

Longtime problems with legal defense have been allowed to fester across the state, experts say.

Chelan County has been repeatedly sued for the poor performance of defense attorneys it paid to represent a string of men and women who were wrongfully convicted of child abuse in the Wenatchee trials. Yet the county continues to pay some of the same lawyers more than $1 million a year for indigent defense.

"In the Wenatchee cases, they failed in their duties to zealously investigate the cases and advocate on behalf of their clients, " McMurtrie said.

In Grant County, three lawyers paid to provide public defense have been investigated by the Washington State Bar Association for serious ethical violations. One was reprimanded, another is recommended for disbarment and a third faces a hearing in May on allegations that he tried to force indigent clients to pay in exchange for providing active representation.

Grant County judges continue to allow all three attorneys to take cases representing the poor, and county commissioners continue to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to honor their contracts, according to Steve Hallstrom, a deputy prosecutor who assists county commissioners with contract reviews.

The problems are so widespread the Washington State Bar Association recently appointed a blue ribbon panel to study them. The panel is expected to review standards and quality of defense in all levels of cases statewide, then recommend improvements to the bar's Board of Governors in December.

Improvements in Clark County came only under unusual pressure.

Led by Sowder, a longtime defense attorney and self-described former hippie, lawyers banded together in fall 2001 and issued a manifesto.

They wanted training, better standards and caseload limits. Sowder started persuading attorneys to sign a petition in September, and eventually got all but three of 43 county contractors to sign. Within a few months, the county agreed to pay an hourly rate of $65 for murders and $75 for capital cases. And the county said judges could exceed long-standing caps for murders and other complex cases if lawyers justified it. Caps -- which the county routinely had used before -- paid the same for all cases no matter how many hours were spent and encourage lawyers to cut corners, national advocates for public defense say.

Other improvements came after the release of a study by a Massachusetts-based consulting firm, Spangenburg, which found that the quality of defense in Clark County suffered from low pay, unenforced standards and high workloads.

The consultant's mid-2002 report, requested by county commissioners and paid for by the American Bar Association, says overworked attorneys were quick to encourage clients to plead guilty, filed few briefs and often did not investigate whether statements and evidence were obtained legally.

Several defense attorneys attributed their health problems to the heavy caseloads.

Ultimately, members of the prosecutor's office, judges, county commissioners and defense attorneys worked together on solutions.

In this year's defense contracts, the county improved pay for routine felonies to about $660 per case -- still less than many other counties. And experienced attorneys who do more cases are no longer forced to provide a discount in fees.

County commissioners also approved an impressive list of standards that call for training, caseload limits, rewards for more experienced attorneys and minimum qualifications. The lengthy list of standards is now among the state's most extensive.

Trouble is, the commissioners did not hire anyone to enforce them.

Clark County's public-defense contracts are still administered by the county's Purchasing Department. This year, a lawyer without trial experience got a contract for felonies, though he didn't meet the standards.

"It shows that nobody's watching," Sowder complained.

Judge Harris and Commissioner Betty Sue Morris support hiring an indigent defense coordinator, but said this year's budget couldn't stretch that far.

Commissioners, however, did put nearly $2.5 million into the indigent defense budget -- up 14 percent from 2002.

Morris, for one, wants to explore the possibility of re-establishing a public defender office.

The county's old office was dissolved more than 20 years ago -- after its staff struck for better pay and working conditions.